The top free way to manage your money

CLEVELAND -- With the holidays right around the corner and many of you dealing with unexpected back-to-school expenses, today is all about savings.

This is also the time of the year where I like to budget for Black Friday and for getting a better idea of where my finances stand before I decide on a 2013 resolution.

Considering many of us cannot afford financial advisors, I want to flag a resource that gets you everything you need for free.

The average consumer owns three credit cards and with different billing dates and cycles, often just seeing your spending in one place is a way to monitor your habits, as well as understand where to tighten up.

Mint.com puts everything you need in one place and then some. There's even a smartphone app to accompany today's website that will send you free alerts when your bills are due.

• You get unbiased, unaffiliated, award-winning advice for free on everything from credit to personalized home loan options.

• See all your accounts in one place. You don't have to check multiple sites per month (or per day for some of us) and you get the entire picture.

• If you invest some of your money, this site lets you instantly "see" all of your assets.

• If you need help budgeting, Mint calculates your spending and breaks it down by category. You can compare your spending month-to-month and quickly see where corners need to be cut and where you or your family is actually on track.

• I love graphs. I like seeing where I need to improve and the free graphs once you sign up allow anyone to easily recognize trends and shortcomings.

Whether you know nothing about money or are more experienced like I am when it comes to savings and money management, today's site will help you in countless ways.

The site has received praise and is considered one of the top sites in the country by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Time, Money, CNN Money and Kiplinger's, to name a few.

If you're worried about sharing personal information with this website, it's been around since 2005 with more than 10 million registered users and the exact same security your bank uses online.

Mint is as secure, if not moreso, than any banking website you visit and it's a read-only site, which means no money can ever be moved using this website.